Finding Home
by Wijida
Summary: Kathryn Janeway and her crew are back...but it doesn't feel like home. Can Janeway find her own home, on Earth? It seems that home may /really/ be where the heart is.


Disclaimer: If you've heard it once, you've heard it a thousand times. Paramount owns Voyager, and there is balance...somewhere.

  


Finding Home

By Manda (Mizuno Ami)

  


"Your hair looks great." He said simply, standing in the doorway with his arms at his side, looking just as she remembered him, the last time they'd spoken. "It's been a while, Kath."

"It has," She replied, hands straying upward to brush strands of golden auburn behind her ear. "How are you, Mark?"

"Doing well. We're doing well. And you?" They still stood with the door open, San Fransisco's sunset casting rays of orange into the teal and grey furnishings of her meager apartment. She hadn't a place to stay once returning home, and although Gretchen had made several attempts to insist upon her staying in Indiana, Kathryn felt that her place was near the Golden Gate bridge, near Starfleet Academy, near Headquarters. Somewhere where she would be easy to reach, were her crew ever to need contact.

"Fine. I'm fine." She realized that she felt awkward, less so than she had imagined once getting the news of his marriage, and picturing their first meeting in years...but she still felt awkward, and disliked the sensation. "You must be doing well, Mark....a family, marriage--I'd say it suits you."

"You should try it, Kath."

_I'd always hated that name..._ she thought, smiling. "No, I don't think it's for me. I'm more of the loner, myself."_ But am I? I've never truly believed...I don't know what I believe, anymore._

"You'd be surprised." He crossed the threshold and embraced her, she finding that her own arms surrounded him as well, and she felt content to be near such a friend once again. "I've missed you."

"And I you. Don't think that I wasn't happy for you, Mark. And your wife--she sounds lovely."

He released her and paced, cable-knit sweater hugging his torso as his arms tensed about his body. "Kathryn, I'm sorry for what happened. I've thought about you...and I would have waited- you know that."

"I do." She smiled, feeling older and so distant despite the few feet between them. She felt miles away, light years, her thoughts and emotions living with someone else. He knew, she knew...it was obvious, and needed to be spoken. "Mark...I wanted you to wait, for the longest time...I sat in my cabin every night and thought about you--knew that when I was staring at one star, you were staring at it too...and those thoughts made it seem as if you weren't as far away. Your picture woke me up, put me to sleep---I think that the only thing that kept me going for the first few months was knowing that you waited for me at home, with Molly."

"And the next few years?" He spoke the words she couldn't add, standing there watching her pace with a peculiar look upon his face. Kind features, kind face, peculiar gleam in his eyes--melancoly? Remorse? She couldn't place it. _Silly Starfleet Captain, can't place his thoughts...even those of her former lover._

"For the next few years...I had help, I confess."

"Chakotay."

"Yes, Chakotay." She fell to the couch and folded her hands into her lap, taking a moment to stare around the sparse furnishings, silently thanking her mother for the knick-knacks and simple things- an Irish mask, a holophoto of she and Phoebe in the garden- which made the stiff, Starfleet settings seem just a bit more like home._ Home. I'm home...and don't know what to do with myself. _"There's the real challenge."

"What?" Mark was looking at her in his way, the peculiar glaze still in his eye as he perched on the corner of the sofa. "What is it, Kathryn?"

"The challenge. All of these years...I was certain that getting home was what I wanted, that I needed to be back among my family, my friends...in Starfleet, with you...and later, without. There was so much I _wanted_. Now that we're here...I'm seeing that there isn't anything left...that I'm here without really being here. I'm on Voyager, Mark...and I want that family back."

The silence was palpable; her hands remained folded, but in a moment were clenched, and she rose with a fluid motion, turning to pick up a frame with a small, grainy holophoto within. She and her crew- Ancestors eve- and her hands closed around it securely.

"I miss them...and I'm not home anymore. That ship- that crew- became home almost seven years ago. It just...took me that long to know it."

Mark smiled, getting to his feet and reaching to squeeze her arm gently. A friend--just not the friend she_ needed _now. Not whom she wanted to greet in the morning, see at night, feel next to her when she needed the comfort and security. Not whom she loved anymore...not what she_ felt _she wanted at all.

The viewscreen was snapped up by her own hand, Mark's quiet retreat even picked up as she lowered her emotionally-tired body into a chair and pressed the initiation panel.

"Hello, Chakotay? No, I couldn't sleep, either."

_Welcome home. I've found you._

  


-Fin-


End file.
